Colts Draft 2020: Revisiting The Connected Dots At Each Position

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INDIANAPOLIS — More than ever, the NFL Scouting Combine is critical for this year's 2020 NFL Draft evaluation.


With the global COVID-19 pandemic, players who did not perform at the Combine, either due to injuries or by choice, may not have gotten an opportunity to provide the 32 NFL teams with adequate physical measurements and athletic test scores. For some, they were lucky enough to get a pro day in before travel for teams became prohibited.


Before the Combine, we set out to find which Combine workout categories may be most important for Indianapolis Colts fans to keep an eye on, based on the common traits in their players. This is especially true for the players who are currently on the roster and have been acquired by general manager Chris Ballard since he was hired in 2017.


What traits do the Colts look for in each position, essentially? For each position group, we've broken it into three categories:

• Players who were either drafted or signed as undrafted free agents by Ballard
• Players who were already in the NFL and have been acquired by Ballard through free agency, waivers or by trade
• Players who were already on the roster when Ballard arrived

These categories help show what Ballard and the Colts may look for in brand new players who have yet to get to the NFL, players who are new to them but already have some sort of NFL experience and players who fit the roster despite the change in front office.


For balance, if Ballard has not drafted and/or signed at least three undrafted players to a certain position, we'll take into account all of the current rostered players that he's acquired.


Not fitting into certain physical or athletic thresholds doesn't necessarily take players off of teams' boards; but it does often move them down boards. Things that would completely take a guy off teams' boards would be if they had really bad football or off-field character, if they had terrible athletic scores or if they just did not fit the team anywhere schematically with their blend of physical measurements and style of play.


The players that we're going to get into today are primarily based on measurements and athletic scores, but play style and strengths and weaknesses of guys' game is also taken into account. It's not beneficial to include someone just because of their size.


In a nutshell, which players in the 2020 NFL Draft (in the Colts' draft range) are most similar, physically and athletically, to the players currently on the Colts roster that they have recently selected in the draft or signed as undrafted free agents?


To determine the pool of players to choose from, we selected 25 of the top players from each position group that may fit the Colts, and then whittled the list down to those who were at least a 50 percent match for the Colts' current position group.


*Denotes a player who participated in the Senior Bowl, which is another positive factor for the Colts.